


Somethin' Better Comes Along

by Sir_Bedevere



Series: You're Gonna Love Tomorrow [4]
Category: Follies - Sondheim/Goldman
Genre: F/M, Prequel, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-07
Updated: 2020-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:53:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23056540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sir_Bedevere/pseuds/Sir_Bedevere
Summary: Momma had always told a story about the day that Sally was born. How she was birthed under a rain cloud, born on a day when a storm was raging across the wide open sky, tearing it open.Sometime between the Follies and that night in 1971, Sally Durant found herself.
Relationships: Buddy Plummer/Sally Durant
Series: You're Gonna Love Tomorrow [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1313285
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	Somethin' Better Comes Along

Momma had always told a story about the day that Sally was born. How she was birthed under a rain cloud, born on a day when a storm was raging across the wide open sky, tearing it open. Sally always knew it must be true, cos sometimes she could hear the wind blowing in her ears, feel the icy cold chill go all down her back. 

But for a while at least, Ben had made it all stop.

Ben had made the howling go away.

*

Sally felt bad for Buddy, at first. Of course she did. She wasn't a monster. He didn't have many friends, really just Ben, and one day her and Ben were gonna leave him. She felt bad for Phyllis too, but Phyllis was pretty and smart, smarter than Sally ever was. She'd be okay. 

Then Ben just - walked away. 

Sally laid in bed for four days before Phyllis dragged her out.

 _God, the noise in her head._

*

When Buddy left for Europe, Sally grabbed him and she kissed him hard. 

Ben was watching. 

*

Mr Weismann closed the Follies and the girls scattered. 

“What are you gonna do, Phyll?” Sally asked, as they stood outside the theatre with their last paychecks and their half dozen red roses apiece. Mr Weismann didn't know what red roses meant. He'd just got them cheap from somewhere. But roses were roses, and Sally cradled them. 

“I'm going home. I’m going to save up money for when Ben comes home,” Phyllis said, and she wouldn't look Sally in the eye. She hugged her roses closer, like she was afraid to drop them. “Maybe you should go home too.”

*

So Sally did. She wrote Momma and told her she was coming, and the trip took three days on the rattiest old bus that ever drove from New York to Iowa. 

Daddy was waiting at the station for her and they walked hand in hand back to the farm. He carried her little case and she swung on his hand like when she was a kid. Sally took a big gulp of the air, fresh and green, and then she said, 

“Daddy, I met a boy and I'm gonna marry him when he gets back from the war. I can't wait till you meet him.”

*

“What's his name, baby?” Momma asked her, a few days after she came home. Sally had been spinning such stories about her boy, how she loved him, how New York was the best thing she ever did but boy, she was glad to be home. 

“Huh?”

“You haven't told me his name,” Momma said, putting a loaf on the table. “All these stories and I don’t know a stitch about him, really.” 

Sally looked down at her hands. Stained with ink from writing Ben earlier that day, a letter to tell him she forgave him and she'd wait. 

God, the noise in her head. She had to write it down, just to make it stop. 

“Buddy, Momma. His name is Buddy.”

*

Next day, she wrote him too. Buddy. 

*

Performing every night had been hard, but farming was harder. 

She’d forgotten how hard.

Sally's hands were soft now and even collecting the eggs, a job for a little kid, was difficult because the hay scratched at her. Milking the cows was easier though, cos she was stronger in her arms from all of the dancing. She sort of took over it, and the goats, and Momma was happy to let her. 

It was peaceful with the cows, early in the morning at an hour Sally hadn't seen for her whole time at the Follies. They smelled sweet and they were always happy to see her, their great big heads butting gentle at her when she sat down on her stool. Their warm lips nibbled at her hair, and she liked to lean her cheek against their red-fur hides. 

In the early quiet, with her tender friends, who never wanted more from her than her warm hands, Sally thought the noise was a little less than usual. 

*

Ben never wrote her back. 

She cried whole nights in bed, dreaming of him drowning somewhere, his last letter to her in his pocket as he went down with his ship. The storm tossed sea, swallowing up his apologies and his promises that one day he’d come back for her. 

Then one night, she didn’t dream about him.

*

On Independence Day, Sally and Momma went into town with Mrs Radley. Daddy didn’t like the noise of the parade, so he stayed back and drank beer on the porch with old Mister Radley. 

The parade was small, a few boys in uniform who hadn’t shipped out yet. Some kids from the schools, decked out in ribbons of red, white and blue. A marching band who played their drums too loud. The mayor gave a speech and there was a collection of loose change to help the war effort. 

It wasn’t much. It wasn’t New York. But it was home. 

They went for ice cream, squeezing through the crowd. Sally snagged a seat for Momma, and she stood at the counter with Mrs Radley, sharing a sundae. Sally licked her spoon, and listened to the kids laughing, and to Momma and Mrs Radley talking about the soldier boys, and she closed her eyes before they could see her crying. 

_You’d think I was a happy girl._

She’d said that to Ben once, and he’d listened, or she thought that he did. But then he’d just walked away, turned his back, chosen Phyllis, and now he didn’t care. 

Maybe he never cared.

But the funny thing was, Sally didn’t think she was crying because she was sad. Not eating ice cream on Independence Day, with her Momma right there and Daddy waiting at home. She wasn’t sad. Not that time. 

*

The telegram came early, when Sally was the only one up with the cows. She watched the man on the motorcycle come down the lane, kicking up such a noise that the cows were uneasy. She stroked their heads and watched him veer off towards the Radley farm. 

She was sure, although Daddy said it seemed a fancy, that she heard Mrs Radley screaming not long after. 

Mister Radley Junior, her husband, had been killed on some beach in France. Normandy. Sally had never even heard of such a place. Buddy wasn’t allowed to tell her anything in his letters, though she thought that he must be in France too. That’s where all the boys seemed to be. She wondered how long it would be after Buddy’s daddy got a telegram that Sally would hear about it. 

Sally and Momma went over later, with a casserole. Old Mister Radley was sitting in his chair on the porch, and he didn’t say anything though Sally said hello. So she sat with him and held his hand while Momma went inside to see to Mrs Radley. 

“You got a young man?” Mister Radley asked, all sudden, curling his fingers round Sally’s. His hands were warm and rough. Farmer hands.

“Yes, sir.”

“He out there?”

“Yes, sir. He is. He said he’s gonna bring me a silk parachute to make a wedding dress.”

Mister Radley nodded, squeezed her hand tight, then loosened up. 

“I’ll ask God he comes home to you. I got no one to keep my prayers for now.”

*

Standing at the bus station, Sally held the last letter she ever wrote Ben tight in her hand. She’d kept it under her pillow for a year. Maybe two. Time was slower in Iowa.

The station was busy. The boys were finally coming home. It was busy, but it was quiet in her head. 

No howling, of late. 

As Buddy’s old bus rattled into the station, Sally tore the letter in two and tossed it in the trash.

**Author's Note:**

> I really thought Sally would be the most difficult one to write and I was kind of putting her off, but honestly I think that I like this one the best out of all of them.


End file.
